Mitochondrion-Permeable Antioxidants to Treat ROS-Burst-Mediated Acute Diseases

Table 1

Licensed antioxidants for alleviating disease-related oxidative-damage. Their evidenced clinical uses, drawbacks, and possible side effects are summarized.

Drug’s name	Clinical uses	Drawbacks	Possible side effects
Edaravone	Ischemic stroke	Limited testing and sometimes ineffective	Nephrotoxicity [95]
Idebenone	Alzheimer disease	Limited testing and sometimes ineffective	Gastrointestinal complaints, neurotoxicity, and cardiotoxicity [95]
α-Lipoic acid	Diabetic neuropathy and eye-related disorders	Limited testing and sometimes ineffective	Headache, tingling, skin rash, or muscle cramps [95]
Carotenoids	Inflammation, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases	Sometimes ineffective	Damage to skeletal muscle integrity (high-dose) [44], canthaxanthin retinopathy [102], and lung cancer in heavy smokers [103]
Vitamin E	Inflammation, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases	Sometimes ineffective	Hemorrhage and vitamin K deficiency (high-dose) [45]
Coenzyme Q10	Heart failure, migraine, hypertension, and neurodegenerative diseases	Limited testing, insoluble in water, therefore in low bioavailability, and sometimes ineffective	Largely gastrointestinal complaints (very high-dose) [50]
MitoQ	Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, hypertension, diabetes, heart attack, sepsis, alcohol-induced steatohepatitis, and cocaine cardiotoxicity	Sometimes ineffective in human bodies	No side effect observed (even after a long-term oral administration) [56]
SkQ	Age-related diseases	Limited testing	No side effect observed [59]
Astaxanthin	Atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease and ischemic brain damage, age-related macular degeneration, acute pain, inflammation, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases	Insoluble in water and sometimes ineffective	No side effect observed [60–64]